well maybe. Even though it might not be fair to blame Catholicism for the Easter bunny, it could otherwise be scary for some (just for being Catholic or living among them) in times past who would be brought under examination without being told the accusation or who the accuser was. Speak wrong, or just give the Inquisitors an excuse, and one was in jeapordy of both property & life, QUIT LITERALLY.

..."And he (Peter) was not Jewish." Then someone needs to let Jesus know, since Peter, along with the 11 will be sitting upon twelve thrones judging the 12 tribes of Israel, when Christ returns. (Mat. 19:28, Luke 22:29,30). Not only that, the great Pentecost message Peter preached to all Jews gathered there, what would that have been about? Not only did Peter stand up on that great day and declare that the last days had come (Acts 2:16,17), he actually offered the Kingdom to Israel, if they repented, were baptized, and accepted Christ as Messiah. A non-Jew doing this??

I meant the dude that Peter converted was not Jewish.

Another question to you...Acts 1:8 and the scattering of the Jerusalem disciples to Judea and Samaria. Most believe this was in fulfillment of the "great commisssion", as recorded in Acts 1:8. However, the very OPPOSITE is true, according to God's word. These disciples had NOT left Jerusalem in response to any command of the Lord. They had FLED FOR THEIR LIVES. And the TWELVE APOSTLES, the VERY ONES our Lord had COMMANDED to go FROM JERUSALEM TO ALL THE WORLD, STAYED AT JERUSALEM. Hmmmm, that seems strange. Why would the 12 STAY at Jerusalem? Were they delinquent in their duty to evangelize the world? The Scriptures say plainly that they were NOT delinquent. The REASON the twelve stayed at Jerusalem was because the Kingdom, in which they were to have twelve thrones (Matt. 19:28),was to be ESTABLISHED AT JERUSALEM, and blessing and SALVATION was to FLOW FROM THERE to the ends of the earth. Obviously their work for the kingdom and Israel was not yet done.

Umm, the Jerusalem is descended from heaven (see especially Revelation chapters 3 and 21) and will have the saved inhabiting it. It WILL happen - the Apostles are long dead at this point, and the New Jerusalem will be larger than any city on earth. The Apostles are long dead and presumably in Heaven among the saved. Christianity believes that the saved go to Heaven, not hang about in the earth waiting for future eventualities.

Again, Peter was Jewish. The one he converted was not.

253
posted on 04/03/2013 2:46:38 PM PDT
by MarkBsnr
(I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)

That meme gets really old. Pictures of parents etc. are not used to worship God.

This meme gets really old. Were the cherubim etc. commanded by God to be fashioned onto the Ark not used to assist in the worship of God?

The difference is very great as God said not to use images etc like the pagans did in worshiping Him.

Negative. God said not to worship images. When you worship other gods, God gets a tad vexed. St. Luke wrote the first icon (of Mary). Others followed - the catacombs under Rome are full of icons. So are the Orthodox places of worship. This whole nonsense about icons began with the heretical iconoclasts, fuelled by the Muslims' desire to wipe out Christianity. The Muslims have teamed with the antiCatholics throughout history to try to wipe out Christianity. Look at the events in Iraq over the last decade, for example.

254
posted on 04/03/2013 2:52:28 PM PDT
by MarkBsnr
(I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)

"Therefore" what? I'm not going to play run/fetch. If there is something you wish to actually say in establishing some "therefore", then please feel free to do so.

From your discourse here, you certainly appear to be playing run/fetch. And not for the Christian side.

But now we seem to moved on to seraphim without examining why the serpent on the staff was not prohibited. There is a key stipulation which is the crux of the prohibition of making images. That might be a good place to start, if you wish to build some thesis.

Your position appears to be that there are no serpents in Heaven. I pointed out that there are seraphim. Your position is wrong.

Avoidance of my other statements or questions does not strengthen your position.

255
posted on 04/03/2013 2:55:20 PM PDT
by MarkBsnr
(I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)

And, we have the evidence of the traditions of the various Christian settlement, such as the ones in India who trace back to (doubting) Thomas and Bartholomew. There weren't any Jews in India at the time.

If there weren't any Jews there, Thomas violated the command of Jesus...

Either there weren't any Jews in India at the time, or else your interpretation of Scripture is wrong. Hmmm. There weren't any Jews in India at the time.

256
posted on 04/03/2013 2:57:02 PM PDT
by MarkBsnr
(I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)

And of course it was after that the the commission for the Jewish apostles was to send them to where Jews lived...And for Paul, he was sent to where Gentiles lived...Even if there were Jews and Gentiles in those respective areas...

There weren't any Jews in what is now Russia, or what is now France, or what is now Germany, nor in India. Yet the Apostles went there - we have the evidence.

257
posted on 04/03/2013 2:59:12 PM PDT
by MarkBsnr
(I would not believe in the Gospel, if the authority of the Catholic Church did not move me to do so.)

Oh, THAT dude. I was wondering what in the world you were saying :) You mean Cornelius. 1.Peter fell into a trance when he went up on the housetop to pray. 2.He saw a vision of killing and eating all manner of beasts. 3. He argued with the Lord when the Lord told him to kill and eat of these "unclean" beasts. Peter said "not so, Lord". 3 times this happened. Obviously we see that Peter did NOT know that anything gentile in nature would be acceptable to God. Even though he was commanded to take the gospel of the kingdom to all the world, every nation.

4. Peter doubts in himself what this vision meant. He was told by the Spirit that 3 men sought him, arise and go to them, nothing doubting. Hmmm, that doesn't sound like he was ready to take the gospel of the Kingdom to all nations. 5. He is told that Cornelius was a just man, and of good report among all the NATION OF THE JEWS. Again, what about to all the nations? Would it not have mattered WHAT Cornelius believed if the twelve were actually carrying out the "great commission"?

6. And this is the kicker: "And he said unto them 'YE KNOW HOW THAT IT IS AN UNLAWFUL THING FOR A MAN THAT IS A JEW TO KEEP COMPANY, OR COME UNTO ONE OF ANOTHER NATION; but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean." (Acts 10, the whole Chapter).

What is THAT about? If they were given a commission to go into all the world, preaching the gospel to every creature, why in the world would Peter have hesitated, doubted, argued with anyone regarding Cornelius? Why hesitate regarding the gospel of the kingdom? Why not just RUN to Cornelius with the good news? And why did he rehearse what happened when he met before the council at Jerusalem? Did they not understand the commission given to them? Or were they doing EXACTLY what Christ commissioned them to do, go to the Jew first. And once Israel is saved, it's on to the gentiles. There's a lot of meat in this particular part of Acts. Meat that can change your life, if understood and believed as God had it written. Not as man has changed, avoided, or deceived others about. It says what it means and means what it says.

259
posted on 04/03/2013 3:24:23 PM PDT
by smvoice
(Better Buck up, Buttercup. The wailing and gnashing are for an eternity..)

Great stuff about the way the story unfolds as it moves through Acts. That is excellent hermeneutics. The way you describe the grafting in of us Gentiles slowly dawning on Peter (well, after he is startled by the vision) also tells a lot about what was actually going on in the Gospels. The blood had not been shed and we were not yet included (Eph 2). There would not be near the collision between grace and Law if people would read the story as it unfolds. Wonderful info. Thanks.

I am not implying that there are not errant or superstitious Catholics only that Catholic teaching differentiates between prayer and worship....We ask saints, whom we believe are still alive, to intercede and pray for us.

And that's the issue that I find impossible to understand. Why don't Catholics just pray to Jesus our Lord? Why do they feel the need to have someone "intercede" for them?

From your discourse here, you certainly appear to be playing run/fetch.

Yeah, so how's it feel to be yourself subjected to it?

And not for the Christian side.

Don't confuse opposition to portions of Romish dogma with opposition to "the Christian side", which I'll go ahead and interperate to mean the worship or approach to the heavenly Creator through the sacrfice of Christ, if that limited of a thumbnail description could suffice for the moment.

Your position appears to be that there are no serpents in Heaven. I pointed out that there are seraphim. Your position is wrong.

That makes little sense. Perhaps you are confusing or mixing "my position" too fully with what others here are conversing with you over. I merely and too briefly pointed out there were no serpents in heaven (at one point interupting in your own discussion with others here)...though there are of course those serpents which slither around on the earth, to which consideration towards, I must confess my brief comment was woefully incomplete...for I never followed up upon what that raised serpent was, with all the world only centuries after it's symbolic first use, eventually finding out the fuller meaning of.

To speak crudely, it was sin on a stick. Christ made sin for us. And they gazed upon Him whom they had pierced...

...which I'll offer as being behind the reason for my saying there be no serpents in heaven. That snake, died. At and after the Resurrection, well...then Jesus was back to His old self, for it most certainly was not sin that defeated sin & death, no sir, even though there for some few hours (it got really dark outside at midday!) He was made sin. Like Yogi Berra says, "Ya' could look it up." Just the search terms "he was made sin for us", I'm confident, would google 'on down and check out the show well enough (bring the needed scripture passage, from Paul, of course).

Otherwise, though I've not attempted to much follow your present conversation here with others (remember I originally told you I had little interest in it?), but from briefly glancing at things...it doesn't seem as if you brought the prohibition I mentioned, under re-examination (perhaps I missed it) which was offered as suggestion for starting point. It must all be judged in the light of that prohibition, doesn't it?

But the personal criticisms included in the comment to which I here reply... call for some reply (at risk of leading to further disrailment of discussion) while passing through briefly here on my way to other things.

Avoidance of my other statements or questions does not strengthen your position.

Isn't that just peachy. Play a tune, and I don't dance, all of a sudden I'm some bad guy. Play a tune and I do bring something of strength, it doesn't do me any good either, for if it's strong enough, it'll just be ignored, then some one else will come along and shoot spitwads at it (but never approach and touch the substance of it), just offer other distractions, exceptions, and more distractions, with those themselves all too frequently containing their own errors of assumption & presumption...amid lack of inclusion of proper identification of elements.

...Like serephim being held as example [of graven image]... I could go on & on concerning those, the ark, the taberbacle[tent] and the symbolic meanings fulfilled and seemingly changed by Christ, but not changed, for the meaning and proper applications were there all along, here and little, there a little, but I won't attempt going further into such, for the time being.

If you're looking for the truth of the matter, don't mistake my present lack of interest, or half-hearted semi-interest (in this discussion) for anything like "victory" in what I'm not too interested in for the moment, to more fully address.

Meaning...sometimes ya' just gotta let your own comments stand as is, and not be badgering for reply, not reading too much into either getting reply and result, or not. I have to do that myself, every single day on this forum. I'm still waiting for two simple questions to be answered, by one whom claims they'll "honestly answer, if honestly asked"...which sort of thing comes from the factory with a built-in escape clause, I guess.

I mention that discussion I was taking part of, and will return to, for if I am to have any sort of "position" here that you indicate needs strengthening...then "my position" begins right around there.

Tap dancing is probably not your strongest talent. You made the definitive statement that we were not to make images. You said nothing about anything qualifying that statement before.

It isn't tap dancing and I believe I was very clear. The context of Exodus is about worshiping things that we make with our hands as well as bowing down to them. It has nothing to do with pictures of birds, trees, frogs, or anything else we might have. Now if you want a real tap dance just ask a Catholic to explain the difference between worshiping and venerating. That is a real show.

"Now if you want a real tap dance just ask a Catholic to explain the difference between worshiping and venerating."

The same tap dance will take place if you ask a Sudanese goat herder the difference between a rotary and a piston engine. That is because you do not speak "Catholic" or have ever been exposed to it at anything other than the superficial level.

Every field of study requires a way of expressing subtleties and nuances not needed by the average lay person. Call it jargon. Catholic teaching has developed over 2,000 years in which the primary languages were Greek and Latin. Words have been created or adapted to express full and complete meanings not expressable in English short of publishing many paragraphs of explanation. We use the words dulia, hyperdulia and latria to explain the difference degrees of veneration and worship. Actual worship (Latria) is reserved only for God.

But why stop at worship. We have four different words for love. These are Eros, Philios, Storge and Agape. Unless you understand the differences you cannot differentiate between a love of pizza and the love of God.

Peace be with you

265
posted on 04/03/2013 6:12:14 PM PDT
by Natural Law
(Jesus did not leave us a Bible, He left us a Church.)

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